Up and down old Brandywine!... Stripe me with pokeberry-juice!-- Flick me with a pizenvine And yell "Yip!" and lem me loose! --Old now as I then wuz young, 'F I could sing as I HAVE sung, Song 'ud surely ring DEE-VINE Up and down old Brandywine! WHEN EARLY MARCH SEEMS MIDDLE MAY When country roads begin to thaw In mottled spots of damp and dust, And fences by the margin draw Along the frosty crust Their graphic silhouettes, I say, The Spring is coming round this way. When morning-time is bright with sun And keen with wind, and both confuse The dancing, glancing eyes of one With tears that ooze and ooze-- And nose-tips weep as well as they, The Spring is coming round this way. When suddenly some shadow-bird Goes wavering beneath the gaze, And through the hedge the moan is heard Of kine that fain would graze In grasses new, I smile and say, The Spring is coming round this way. When knotted horse-tails are untied, And teamsters whistle here and there. And clumsy mitts are laid aside And choppers' hands are bare, And chips are thick where children play, The Spring is coming round this way. When through the twigs the farmer tramps, And troughs are chunked beneath the trees, And fragrant hints of sugar-camps Astray in every breeze,-- When early March seems middle May, The Spring is coming round this way. When coughs are changed to laughs, and when Our frowns melt into smiles of glee, And all our blood thaws out again In streams of ecstasy, And poets wreak their roundelay, The Spring is coming round this way. A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days-- Of the times as they ust to be; "Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays" Is a' most too deep fer me! I want plane facts, and I want plane words, Of the good old-fashioned ways, When speech run free as the songs of birds 'Way back in the airly days. Tell me a tale of the timber-lands-- Of the old-time pioneers; Somepin' a pore man understands With his feelins's well as ears. Tell of the old log house,--about The loft, and the puncheon flore-- The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out, And the latch-string thrugh the door. Tell of the things jest as they was-- They don't need no excuse!-- Don't tech 'em up like the poets does, Tel theyr all too fine fer use!-- Say they was 'leven in the fambily-- Two beds, and the chist, below, And the trundle-beds that each helt three, And the clock and the old bureau.